NOT to brag but in his fights the last few years victorious all, Donnie Nietes got my nod. Several I had predicted a knockout ending in his favor. Correctly.
The last one was only last May 27.
Pitted against Mexican Raul Garcia, Nietes needed only a little over five rounds to score a technical knockout victory in the sixth round.
Garcia, armed with a six-fight winning streak before climbing the ring at the La Salle Gym in Bacolod City, proved tough but only in the first two rounds of the fight scheduled for 12.
Early in the third, Nietes sent Garcia crashing to the canvas with a solid right to the face.
Garcia, whose last five victories were against Filipinos, the last was on Oct. 17, 2015, over Jun Alejo, fell a second time from a left-right combination just before the third round ended.
Nietes went for the kill in the fourth and fifth rounds with a barrage of shots to the head and body, finally nailing the TKO win when Garcia slumped in the neutral corner from an apparent right to the head in the sixth.
With that win, Nietes, the longest reigning Filipino world champion at eight-plus years, improved to 37-1-4, win-loss-draw record with 21 knockouts.
Garcia, a one-time world champion, fell to 38-3-1 with 23 knockouts as he failed in his bid to capture Nietes WBO jr. flyweight 108-pound crown.
On Sunday (tomorrow, PHL Time), Nietes, who turned 34 last May 13, debuts in the flyweight division as he faces Mexican Edgar Sosa, a bit dangerous I must say mainly because Sosa is a former world champion.
The fight, set at StubHub Center in Carson City, California, was relentlessly pursued by ALA Promotions president Michael Aldeguer to put an end to Nietes? weight woes.
In his last two fights, Nietes continued to struggle in maintaining his light flyweight status. I was witness to that as I was at ringside in his last fight in Bacolod in the company of May and Ramon Uy, Sahlee and Johnny Tan, Dr. Ed Ordo?ez and Sol F. Juvida.
As the No. 1 challenger in his new weight class, Nietes should find the fourth-ranked Sosa an easy customer. In his last fight alone, Sosa lost by a second-round TKO.
Therefore, I pick Nietes to win by knockout tomorrow. And finally become a double-division world champion. A long-overdue accolade.
